This is amazing. After watching some of the videos in the link I think I’ve figured out what’s driving the dogs crazy. There seems to be a steady rhythm in a high-pitched tone that plays during the entire song. I’m guessing humans can’t normally hear it, but the high pitch comes through in a few of the videos – watch the video with the black lab standing in front of the laptop. The sound I’m talking about about is very noticeable and annoying.

I always thought the howling response was because dogs are really adept at aural and visual cues. So they are responding to the howling sound at the end of the theme song, and after enough listenings they start to howl before it even gets to that part.

I once had a german shepherd, and I discovered (using Science!) that he really, really hated it when you whistled and hummed at the same time. He would sort of square his shoulders and bark at you once every .75 seconds (no more, no less) until you stopped, however long that took.

Either whistle or hum individually, he had no problem with, but combining them apparently created some Lovecraftian sound from beyond space that canine sanity just could not tolerate.

I bring it up, because for some reason, that two note tone they use on Law & Order sounds equally unnatural somehow. Though I rarely bark at it.

I think it’s the overtones created by the low-end in the theme, actually. I’ve always found them to be a sort of ringing, thrumming sound that I don’t enjoy. I notice this particularly because I listen to a LOT of music, but rarely feel the need to turn the volume down because of such an effect.

My parents had a basset hound that would whine and cry whenever you played the song “Suicide is Painless”. MASH came on after the local news – about the time they would start getting ready for bed and send him to the basement for the night.

You got it – this has nothing to do with sound, and everything with behavior. My roommate’s corgi will bark when the bells toll during the ending theme of Futurama, because he knows the show is over and he wants fed or played with. These other dogs know their owners are about to either not give them attention for an hour, or have been sitting for an hour and now might give them some attention.

There is some very high frequency percussion repeated during the whole tune. This must be what the dogs don’t like. It is a repeated quaver beat of a somewhat metallic sounding tick with the second beat in every four missed out. Many of the recordings don’t capture this sound because it is too high. Some recordings reveal it by distorting it and making it appear at a lower frequency.

I think they howl because the theme kinda sounds like howling and they want to howl along. (bark bark bark bark HOOOOOOOOOooowl-hoooooooowl) And, of course, the dogs are being given attention when they howl at the theme, so they feel encouraged continue to do what comes naturally — howling with other “dogs”.

Tangentially, my cat runs from the room in terror whenever the sound effect of a horn is played (as in, a horn you blow in, like in Lord of the Rings, etc). Don’t know what it is but it scares her to death.

Don’t these shows create an artificial level of anxiety in the viewer? Maybe the dogs are just warning the owners that a really bad show that is going to cause everyone stress is about to come on TV. Like warning about tornadoes or other natural disasters. “turn off your TV, bark.”

we have an american eskimo dog that would sit under the piano and howl the whole time my son practiced his violin. Later, I discovered that mashing the high keys on the piano would do the same thing, and also the high notes on a hohner melodica.

I think there are just some tones that get a dog going, and based on my experience they’re at the upper end of the range of some musical instruments. In the law and order theme I’d guess it’s that electric piano sound which has some prominent high overtones to it.

The EPiano sounds like a Yamaha DX 7 preset, actually, and amongst electronic musicians, it’s regarded as especially heinous, as is the prominent ‘seinfeld’ slap bass also featured in the Law & Order theme.

My two cockatiels (birds) also vocalize to the Law and Order theme. They even responded when the theme was played as a clue on Jeopardy! The theme to the original Twilight Zone also triggered a response.

I have three dogs. Two noisy dachshunds, and a German short-haired pointer. They are verbal dogs, bark and talk all the time, but the theme song to Law and Order evoked no response. Sorry. I was disappointed.

I heard that the BOOMBOOM at the end is the sound of a tennis ball being thrown against a wall to a dog. My puppy was sitting on my lap when I watched Law & Order one time and she got up and barked and started scrating my blanket until she ripped a hole in it!! I dont know whats up with the theme song. Im never watching it again

I don’t think my dog hates it I think he likes to sing but I have also found that he howls to the theme song for two and a half men and the JG Wentworth commercial with the vikings who are singing opera. I would love to know what actually makes him sing